Help seeking in dating violence victims: A systematic review

• Autor(a) principal: Pinheiro, Inês
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Caridade, Sónia Maria Martins
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.31211/rpics.2019.5.2.124
• topic: Adolescentes; Jovens adultos; Pedido de ajuda; Revisão sistemática; Violência no Namoro; Adolescent; Dating violence; Young adults; Seeking help; Systematic review

Objective: This study aims to systematize the knowledge about seeking help by adolescents and young adults experiencing dating violence through the identification and analysis of empirical studies in this field. Method: The procedures for conducting a systematic review of research on dating violence among adolescents and young people aged between 12-35, were adopted. Results: We identified 18 studies focusing on the behavior of requests for help from adolescents and young adults' victims of dating violence. The results show that dating violence victims expressed their preference for informal sources of disclosure in all studies, favoring friends. Female victims have shown a clear tendency to report violence, usually acting as spectators, and offering more help when compared to men. In this systematic review, it was also possible to identify the main barriers reported by adolescents and young people in accessing the sources of disclosure (i.e., legitimacy of violence, fear of losing the partner, shame, and lack of self-sufficiency to solve the situation). Conclusions: The conducted research can be applied to other samples, and continuity studies, benefiting from a uniform selection of the instruments used for data collection. The instruction of young people about the boundaries between normative and non-normative behavior in a dating relationship is essential, so that young people do not legitimize dating violence aggression, and may consequently seek help.